"Are you aware of why you are here, sir?" the Tester asked. He had light grey clothes, a light grey voice, and a light grey expression. If you replaced a Tester with a robot, no one would have ever known the difference.

I wanted to tell him yes just to save myself the lecture, but they already had me hooked up to the polygraph, so I didn't bother. "What did I mess up this time?"

The Tester gave a humorless chuckle that bore no semblance to humanity. It bounced off the light grey walls of the Testing Room and into my head like an empty echo of passion. "Don't sound so resigned, sir. The Testing Committee has not given up all hope for you yet, and we would like you to be committed to fitting in wherever we place you next." His smile was a piece of plastic he'd probably memorized from some Testing handbook. "So, you are here today because we received complaints from a few people in your Community of you 'disagreeing' with them. Do you recall such incidents?"

I shifted in my chair. "I simply expressed my opinion. There's no law against that."

"No, sir, no, sir, of course not. Just so long as those opinions are shared by your respective Community." The plastic smile popped back on his face as he shuffled through the notes on the table. "Let's see, we have you currently placed in Industrious, subgroup agnostic, subgroup Caucasian, subgroup heterosexual, subgroup conservative ideologies, subgroup introvert, subgroup IQ Range 120-140." He glanced up from his notes. "That's as far as we can subgroup you, sir, without creating a clone for you."

I didn't laugh at the joke, if that's what it was supposed to be. The Testers existed to make other people feel at ease, not the other way around.

He set his papers down. "So you see the difficult position your recent actions have put the Testing Committee in. Prior to this, every group we've placed you in, your one defining characteristic has been disagreeableness, and disagreeableness is the only quality Society cannot tolerate. Now, it is possible you've been placed in the wrong group this entire time. While the Personality Test is highly accurate, and the polygraph protects from intentional mistakes on the Test, it cannot protect from carelessness or thoughtlessness.

"So, sir," the Tester powered up a tablet and slid it over to me, "please consider your answers carefully this time. Your perfect placement is of utmost importance to your happiness and the survival of Society. Disagreements only arise when people are unalike; where people are alike, there is harmony; and harmony builds utopias." The mantra of Society.

The screen in front of me was light grey with rotating letters that read, "WELCOME TO THE COMPREHENSIVE PERSONALITY TEST: THE BUILDING BLOCK OF UTOPIA." Those words had been my enemy for as long as I could remember. Behind them waited an hours long questionnaire that demanded every detail of your life, an explanation of your soul, and a mind-numbing amount of patience. Seeing it now, I hated it with a fierce and sudden fury the likes of which this plastic, pretend-person in front of me could never feel. I would have given my left hand so as not to take that Test again. It was the bane of my existence and everything that I hated about Society and life.

Fire simmering in my soul, my eyes snapped up to the Tester's. "Have you ever thought that maybe we don't need to be in groups? That we all would be better together, in a wild mix of dispositions and opinions. Why, imagine, when someone dared disagree with us, we could—what, what then? Why, I suppose we'd be forced to have an actual discussion. Wouldn't that be terrifying. Perhaps we'd be forced to change. And that's the greatest fear of all, isn't it?" The polygraph beeped louder with my rising heartbeat, but I ignored it, focusing on this plastic mold of a man in front of me. With a mock calmness, I asked, "Now, sir. Have you ever considered that?"

Cold fear crept into the Tester's eyes. It was the first real expression I'd seen on him, and a thrill ran through me.

He rose. "No. No, sir, I had not considered that. Please, let me discuss it with my superiors." He gathered his notes and hurried out of the room.

When he came back, four muscled men followed him, all wearing shirts marked with the "Athletic" Community badge. The Tester unhooked me from the polygraph and led me out of the room. I didn't bother protesting; I'd already had my say, and the brutes would have stopped me.

They brought me to the Placement Station, a room full of long shuttles and naïve hopefuls waiting for a new home. Many of them were children, whose groups were assessed and changed routinely. Some of them were people who had either gone through some sort of personality change and therefore needed switched or had reported that they weren't happy where they were. Only a few were like me, without any place where they fit the way Society said that they ought to. There were a few of us, though. I had met them before, waiting in this Station, even though we weren't really supposed to talk here. Out of your group, Society said it wasn't safe. Someone might disagree with you.

This time, though, there was no waiting. The Tester brought me to my own tiny shuttle. "You've been permanently placed, sir," he said as he opened the door for me. Confusion washed over me as this man, a worker trained to keep up a neutral façade, became undeniably nervous, shoulders tense and Adam's apple shaking.

I buckled my safety belts, expecting him to close the door and send me to this strange, 'permanent' placement. Instead, he paused. "Your Tests show that you believe in luck. In that case, I wish you plenty."

My brow furrowed, but before I could respond, the door closed, and the shuttle sped away.

After several hours of traveling, the initial triumph of not having to take the Test faded from my veins to be replaced by anxiety. I had been placed more than fifty times over the course of my life and had never ridden in a shuttle for so long.

Finally, the ride came to a shuddering stop. My buckles and door released at the same time, and I pushed outside.

The pockmarked, barren landscape of a wasteland spread out before me, devoid of any human landmark or improvement of Society. In the distance, carrion birds circled. Heat bit at my skin, and a thousand raw scents assailed my nose. I stepped forward into this dangerous, untamed, vast expanse of nature.

Despite caution and fear tingling in the back of my mind, a smile pulled at my lips. "I'm free," I whispered.

The words echoed in my mind as a ring of triumph. I rushed forward into the wild and spun around to face the long-distant Society. Fist springing into the air, I shouted, "I am free! You hear that? You don't own me anymore. I'm free!"

Euphoria swept through me, and I tipped my head back, howling with delight. The cry tasted sweet on my lips, like a sip of honeyed wine after a long day's work. Freedom. Complete and utter freedom.

With a wide grin I couldn't shake, I dropped my hand and turned to face my new home.

As I surveyed the landscape once more, a flash of red caught my eye among the uneven ground. Whatever it had been disappeared, but harsh whispers sounded low in its place. I edged forward, trying to locate the source, and the sound cut off.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I said gently, lowering myself to a crouch. Although I suppose I must have sounded like a mad man just a minute ago. Now that I was at ground level, I saw the pockmarks weren't just uneven areas—they were holes.

Holes just big enough for a person.

"Come on out."

I waited there, long enough that my legs started to burn. I was just about to give up when a little ginger boy climbed out of the hole, closely followed by his mother. And then a couple of men came out of another hole, and two children from another, and before I could even say anything, I was surrounded by dozens of men, women, and children.

They were all dirty, with leathered skin, crooked teeth, and ragged clothes. There was no order to them, just a crowded, uneven circle. As they peered at me with curious eyes, I knew then that I'd found something untouched, untamed, wild. Dangerous, even.

And in that moment, I loved them as I had never loved another person. These strangers, these outsiders, these survivors of a glaring, hostile world—this was society. Not that pretend, plastic, perfectly manufactured thing that gave itself the pomp of a capital "S." No. This was culture. This was reality.

This was life.